mcconnell, whowill join his colleagues later today at the white house. [video clip] >> i told the president last night we would be happy to look at whatever he proposes. the truth is we are coming up against a hard deadline. as i said, this is a conversation we should have had months ago. republicans are not about to write a blank check or anything senate democrats before or just because we find ourselves at the edge of the cliff. that would not be fair to the american people. that said, we will see what the president has to propose. members on both sides will review it. then we will decide how best to proceed. hopefully, there's still time for an agreement of some kind that saves the taxpayers from a preventable economic crisis. host: damian paletta. guest: senator mcconnell is a pro at this kind of negotiation. he's going into this white house meeting saying, give us your proposal, let us see what you want to do, we will be willing to look at whatever you present. the potential problem is what the white house will present is something they are presented before that senator mcconnell has s

of senatormitchmcconnell? guest:the line that comes from the speakers office all the time is the line of communication remain open. i don't know how much talking they did as the president was in hawaii spending time with his family and the speaker was back home in ohio, i believe. i don't know that for sure. everyone was doing their family time and not really working that significantly on something. i think there was probably some minimal conversation, but not a lot. as for the senate minority leader mitch mcconnell, i think that is a good one. a lot has been made in the past few days about him taking a higher profile role in these negotiations. while i don't like prognosticating into the future, we can look at the past in some of the previous negotiations of congress and the kind of role he has played. almost all of these talks, whether it was about government shutdown in the spring of 2011 or the debt limit debate in the summer of 2011 or the payroll tax-cut debate last year, those negotiations started at a level between the president and speaker but always broke down at that level

tomorrow afternoon. host: both majority leader harry reid andmitchmcconnellbothexpressed optimism after the meeting with the president. what is the basis of their optimism? is this a sign we might be one step, two steps, through step closer to a deal? caller: it does appear we are a step closer to a deal. they are talking about doing is extraordinarily popular stuff. except for the big marquee item, which is letting taxes rise on the wealthy. the rest of the stuff they are looking at doing the stuff they do all the time. it is extending an expiring tax policies. they know the benefit businesses. extent college tuition credits. there are looking at protecting people from the alternative minimum tax. it is all very urgent stuff that needs to be done. there are only two remotely controversial pieces of this, that is what to do with the estate tax and to how to define the wealthy people whose taxes are going to go up. the rest of it is, basically protecting people from tax hikes. i guess extending unemployment benefits and sometimes controversial for the republicans. it appears to have agre

mitchmcconnell? guest:the line that comes from the speakers office all the time is the line of communication remain open. i don't know how much talking they did as the president was in hawaii spending time with his family and the speaker was back home in ohio, i believe. i don't know that for sure. everyone was doing their family time and not really working that significantly on something. i think there was probably some minimal conversation, but not a lot. as for the senate minority leader mitch mcconnell, i think that is a good one. a lot has been made in the past few days about him taking a higher profile role in these negotiations. while i don't like prognosticating into the future, we can look at the past in some of the previous negotiations of congress and the kind of role he has played. almost all of these talks, whether it was about government shutdown in the spring of 2011 or the debt limit debate in the summer of 2011 or the payroll tax-cut debate last year, those negotiations started at a level between the president and speaker but always broke down at that level

, steny could have come up with a better met it at that for than that. that was senator reidandmcconnellandcongressman hoyer in washington. brian sullivan is here and refuse rend al sharpton and richard wolf on assignment and joining us on set is rana and in washington eugene robinson. gene, thanks for getting dragged out of bed this morning. what was your initial reaction watching that clip of those three guys talking about this thing? >> you know, where are we? my initial feeling was this isn't going anywhere, and we have to go over the cliff and then they'll fix it. that's amy initial reaction. it doesn't sound like there's anything productive happening, if that's what everybody is still saying about the state of the negotiations. there don't seem to be any real negotiations. >> i have to say, i ought thought this is exactly where we'd be right now. in the beginning i couldn't believe it. >> why did you think that? >> because she's smarter than you. >> i middle east everybody is. >> i called up our washington bureau chief who is smart. right after the elections when everybody starte

to let that vote occur.mr.mcconnell: mr.president? the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: most people are focused, of course, today on what happened over in the house. i'd like to focus on a press conference that congressional democrats held just a few hours earlier. here were the leaders of the democratic party here in the senate, other than the president, these are the folks with the greatest responsibility for protecting the american people from a massive tax hike coming in january. and what do they do? they stood in front of the cameras and laughed, laughed. they giggled at a bunch of bad jokes and told the american people they didn't plan to do anything this week, nothing. absolutely nothing. democrats in the house vowed they wouldn't vote for this bill. the majority leader vowed he would ignore it if it made it out of the house and went to the senate, and the president vowed he would veto it if it made it out of the senate. so democrats spent all day yesterday, literally all day yesterday defeating a bill that would have made current tax rates permanent f

whethermitchmcconnellwantsto play a role because he has a campaign coming in 2014. for some people on the far right, the idea that mitch mcconnell would make a deal with obama could be acceptable. you have 10 or more republican senators who say they are willing to do business with president obama in terms of approving an increase in the marginal tax rates. if that is the case, if you could get them to pass some kind of bill and then send it on to the house, and all boehner said was i will allow a vote, and you have democrats and some republicans feeling pressure joining in, you could get a bill done. host: rick is from massachusetts on our independent line. caller: good morning. i have a problem with the president. he is the most divisive individual who has come to power in this country for a long time. he completely denied his white relatives and blames all the problems on white men by buying the votes of the lower earners in this country by saying it is not your fault. he promised to bring this country to gather. what happened? guest: i am surprised. upper income people voted for